Cero Reviews GCW Effy's Big Gay Brunch

[cero2k]

GCW Effy's Big Gay Brunch
October 10, 2020
Indianapolis, IN

As per commentary, the whole show has 'relaxed rules' when it comes to interference and weapon use, in other words, we're getting a lot of people on the show and we're getting our shit in and we don't want to plan around rules and referees.

AC Mack & Ashton Starr vs. Team Sea Stars (Ashley Vox & Delmi Exo) - 6.5/10
Good opener, Sea Stars were great underdog babyfaces and Ashton Starr was a fantastic annoying heel. The way that Starr mocked Exo trying to make a tag was glorious. Sea Stars defeated Mack and Starr.

Dark Sheik vs. Still Life With Apricots And Pears - 7.5/10
This was my favorite match from a wrestling perspective, it was a great heel vs babyface competition. It may be that aside from the gauntlet match, this was given the most time. This was a combination of lucha and mat grappling, with a lot of Sheik cutting off Still Life, who ended up winning with a Figure 4 after a footstomp. Still Life was IMO the last best thing that came out of CHIKARA and I'm glad that they can keep the gimmick going, and in the same vein, Still Life is a great technical wrestler, I would love to see them go against someone like Gresham.

The Second Gear Crew (1 Called Manders, Mance Warner, Matthew Justice) & Levi Everett vs. Billy Dixon, Joshua Wavra, MV Young & O'Shay Edwards - 7/10
Story was that Effy wanted a team of LGBTQ+ wrestlers to take on a dream team of indie wrestling, that team being the Second Gear Crew and Everett (which could really open a whole discussion of the current state of indie wrestling in the US, but we'll leave that for another day), and so they managed a pretty good LGBTQ+ team to represent.

This was 4v4 tornado, it was all chaos all over the ring, they fought around the ring, inside the ring, they used weapons, everyone got their shit in, and at the end, the SGC won, but they played it out that the LGBTQ+, while not being a proper team and being somewhat unexperienced, had taken the 'toughest' team in the indies to the limit. Dixon took the pin for the team.

Jamie Senegal (w/Saint Synclair) vs. Allie Kat - 4/10
This was the weakest match, Senegal was a total heel, but to the point that Synclair was doing most of the offense. Think of it as an EVIL & Dick Togo match, combined with ironic spots of 1999 WWF women's "cat fighting". Senegal won when Allie Kat was hit with water (which cats hate) and then a chair shot.

Twink Gauntlet Match
Juicy Jimmy vs. Kit Osbourne vs. Tony Deppen vs. Parrow vs. Jimmy Lloyd vs. Calvin Couture vs. Devon Monroe vs. Molly McCoy vs. Austin Luke vs. Boom Harden vs. Dyln McKay vs. Jared Evans vs. Kody Manhorn vs. Logan Stunt vs. Marcus Mathers vs. Sean Henderson vs. Tyler Klein - 5/10
This was all built to get two names over, Parrow, aka the Twink Hunter, and Devon Monroe. Some people did stuff until Parrow came out and started destroying everyone, at one point Effy came out and said that Parrow wouldn't win like this, and so unleashed an 'unlimited amount of twinks', and so Parrow killed them all until Devon Monroe came out. At the end, everyone kinda joined against Parrow (even after they were all eliminated), and with the Deppen assist, Monroe got the win. Ok stuff, but as is the case with a lot of these Collective battle royales, there are a lot of names that are just inconsequential and you won't remember five minutes later.

Effy vs. "The Ultimate Twink" Marko Stunt - 5.5/10
This was originally supposed to be Effy vs Priscila Kelly, but she had to cancel due to a personal reason. So out came to a big surprise Marko Stunt, he had more stuff booked for later in the weekend, but I do believe that this was his first appearance in the venue.

The match was kinda straight forward, Marko did his flippy stuff, then they brought out a dildo that Effy tried to curb stomp Marko into, but was reversed when Marko made the dildo spray Effy in the face. Effy blinded attacked a man dressed like a sex doll, and after a bit more, Marko tricked Effy through a table and won. Fun if you're a fan of either.

Cassandro El Exotico vs. Sonny Kiss - 6.5/10
I don't know if this was supposed to have more time, but Cassandro hurt her ankle early on and was visibly hurting, so for all I know, this may had been cut short. But putting that in account and Cassandro being 50 yrs old, oh boy, she's a FUCKING BADASS! This wasn't heel vs babyface, it was both babyfaces hitting each other with everything. We got all of Cassandro's spots, top rope or not, and in the end, Cassandro won with a Sunset Flip counter roll.

Post-match - The talent came out and the all celebrated Kiss and Cassandro.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
There's not a lot of indie wrestling being showcased at this capacity now a days, we haven't seen the heavy hitters like PWG and DEFY and EVOLVE all year, and so, we don't need to kid ourselves, the level of indie wrestling is the weakest it's been since ECW closed down, because for every Lee Moriarty being awesome, there is a Danhausen comedy act that is drawing because of LOLs and irony, not quality.

And so given that, this was a good Saturday afternoon show, it really was more of a celebration than trying to sell you on drama and stories or workrate, kinda like Wrestlemania, where you go for the party, not because the show is actually good. But most importantly, it's representation that matters the most when it comes to this show, showcasing the LGBTQ+ talent and community in an industry that has forever been homophobic, full of toxic masculinity, and maybe it wasn't more than a couple of years ago, that having an all LGBTQ+ show would had been rejected, or that it wouldn't have found enough LGBTQ+ talent to fill a card, and now in 2020, we could celebrate to have one.

Something about The Collective that I have to mention, and this isn't this show, it goes to all the shows that I watched, was that it looked really really cheap. Not even going into the bad idea that such a long indoors event is right now, it's a venue and the limited crowd made it look bad. When GCW has their outdoor shows, it looks better because you don't actually see empty chairs, you just see spaced out people, and here it just looked like it wasn't half capacity. This isn't even going into the cheap entrance ramp they had, the lighting, how the game was mic'd, and all that. I get it, tough times, but if you have all these promotions pitching in, really think about the look. See it this way, this is going to be material for all the WWE cultists to say that Moxley left WWE to wrestle at half empty gyms and does that hurt your chances of getting Moxley back for another Bloodsport? Always thrive for your product to look the best you can, people DO pay attention to production quality.